Hi,

I'm a 33 year old tech guru who has finally made the leap into learning programming and sofware development. My intersts are broad and from building my 3d printer or learning to create mods for Arma 3 I'm always learning and working on something. I'm a husband and father. Right now, I'm in my last year of a bachelors degree from WGU and I'm starting to really think about where I want to work and what I'm wanting to do.

Working in the game industry has always been a hope, and now that I'm moving away from my current discipline of helpdesk/desktop support analyst into the world of software development I am thinking very seriously about persuing a position as a game developer.

As I'm getting close to completion of my degree, I'd like to do more to position myself to secure a position that satisfies my requirements.

If you're a professional game developer, not just as a hobby, I'd be curious to know of your experiences entering the market. It would be great if I could get involved in a project or two that could develop my skills in that direction as well as make some good connections to others in the gaming dev community.

Thanks in advance for any responses.

Personally, I think I had a bit of luck landing a job as a software engineer. I followed a game development course in the Netherlands where I specialized in programming. During this time I was able to build up a portfolio and through an internship I also got some more experience.

I think the best thing you can do is to show your work, build up a portfolio and show your skills. It's probably also in your best interest to figure out what kind of role you are interested in (programming, art, design, sound) and find out what you want to specialize in. You can get an idea of what you might need to focus on by checking out job openings that interest you.

If you have any specific questions I'd be happy to answer them. I'm sure more people here are willing as well!

Thanks. I'm interested in the programming side of it the most, so that would be the direction I'm going.

As far as building my portfolio, creating something... that's where I hit the wall. I've tried starting projects (software) before, but for one reason or another haven't finished anything. I've been member of github because I thought I could learn something. But basically the few projects I've followed or attempted to contribute to are beyond my skill level and I really didn't understand what I was suppose to do.

I suppose if I could find my perfect job it'd be an entry game programmer at an indipendent game company that could help me develop my skills. I feel like I'm getting a good grasp of software development in my current cirruculum.

Creating and developing something or contributing to something is, I agree, a pretty necessary part of learning software development. This I agree with. But acquiring that experience is what is challenging for me and I imagine is challenging for a lot of people. Nearly all the postings I see for programmer or developer postions require minimum 3-5 years experience. The ones that don't, require proficiency or mastery in their stack.

Is there a website like github but for games? I wish I could join a group of others in a structure like that.